457 
.4 

W5- 


THE  LINCOLN  AND 
DOUGLAS  DEBATES 

AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE 

CHICAGO  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 

FEBRUARY  17,  1914 

By 

HORACE  WHITE 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


HORACE  WHITE 
Reporter  of  the  Debates  for  the  Chicago  Press  and  Tribune 


THE  LINCOLN  AND 
DOUGLAS  DEBATES 

AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE 

CHICAGO  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 

FEBRUARY  17,  1914 

By 

HORACE  WHITE 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


COPYRIGHT  1914  BY 
CHICAGO  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 

All  Rights  Reserved 


Published  July  1914 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University-  of  Chicago  Pre 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.S.A. 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS  DEBATES 


The  subject  of  this  lecture  is  the  Lincoln  and  Douglas 
debates.  These  debates  took  place  in  the  year  1858.  They 
grew  out  of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  Doubt 
less  some  of  you  know  what  the  Missouri  Compromise  was 
and  others  do  not.  It  is  best  that  all  should  know,  since 
without  such  knowledge  the  debates  themselves  would 
have  little  meaning  for  you.  Fifty-six  years  have  passed 
since  those  debates  took  place.  One  hundred  and  ten 
years  have  passed  since  President  Jefferson  bought  Louisi 
ana  from  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  Missouri  Territory  was  a 
part  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  Without  that  purchase 
there  would  have  been  no  Missouri  Compromise,  and  no 
repeal  of  it  in  1854,  and  no  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debates 
on  account  thereof. 

But  there  was  a  remoter  and  deeper  cause  for  that 
encounter.  President  Jefferson  might  have  bought  Louisi 
ana  with  its  vast  hinterland,  and  his  successors  might  have 
carved  Missouri  out  of  it  and  admitted  her  to  the  Union  as 
a  state,  without  any  disturbance,  had  not  African  slavery 
existed  in  this  country.  That  direful  curse  was  ingrafted 
upon  us  in  the  year  1619  at  Jamestown,  Virginia,  where  a 
Dutch  warship,  short  of  provisions,  exchanged  fourteen 
negroes  for  a  supply  thereof.  Few  persons  of  the-  present 
day  realize  how  shocking  a  condition  of  society  slavery  was. 
It  was  a  condition  in  which  some  millions  of  human  beings 
had  no  rights  whatsoever,  among  whom  the  marriage  relation 


M22793 


did  not  exist,  and  where  the  privilege  of  virtue  was 
denied  to  women.  This  institution  was  common  to  all 
the  American  colonies  until  the  end  of  the  Revolutionary 
War.  Then  began  an  emancipation  movement  of  which 
Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  most  ardent  and  influential 
advocate.  He  did  not,  however,  gain  sufficient  support 
for  it  in  Virginia  or  in  Maryland  to  abolish  slavery 
there,  but  in  all  the  states  north  of  Maryland  measures 
were  initiated  for  that  purpose  before  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

After  the  emancipation  movement  came  to  a  pause,  at 
the  southern  border  of  Pennsylvania,  the  fact  became  ap 
parent  that  there  was  a  dividing  line  between  free  states 
and  slave  states,  and  a  feeling  existed  in  both  sections  that 
neither  of  them  ought  to  acquire  a  preponderance  of  power 
and  mastery  over  the  other.  The  slavery  question  was  not 
then  an  issue  in  politics,  but  a  habit  grew  up  of  admitting 
new  states  to  the  Union  in  pairs,  in  order  to  maintain  a 
balance  of  power  in  the  national  Senate.  Thus  Kentucky 
and  Vermont  offset  each  other,  then  Tennessee  and 
Ohio,  then  Louisiana  and  Indiana,  then  Mississippi  and 
Illinois. 

In  1819  Alabama,  a  new  slave  state,  was  admitted  to  the 
Union  and  there  was  no  free  state  to  balance  it.  The  terri 
tory  of  Missouri,  in  which  slavery  existed,  also  was  apply 
ing  for  admission.  While  Congress  was  considering  the 
Missouri  bill,  Mr.  Talmadge  of  New  York,  with  a  view  to 
preserving  the  balance  of  power,  offered  an  amendment 
providing  for  the  gradual  emancipation  of  slaves  in  the 
proposed  state,  and  prohibiting  the  introduction  of  addi 
tional  slaves.  This  amendment  was  adopted  by  the  House 
by  a  sectional  vote,  nearly  all  the  northern  members  voting 
for  it  and  the  southern  ones  against  it,  but  it  was  rejected 
by  the  Senate. 

4 


In  the  following  year  the  Missouri  question  came  up 
afresh  and  Senator  Thomas  of  Illinois  proposed,  as  a 
compromise,  that  Missouri  should  be  admitted  to  the 
Union  with  slavery,  but  that  in  all  the  remaining  territory 
north  of  36°3o/  north  latitude  slavery  should  be  forever 
prohibited.  This  amendment  was  adopted  and  the  bill 
was  passed.  The  Missouri  Compromise  was  generally 
considered  a  victory  for  the  South,  but  Thomas  Jefferson 
considered  it  the  death  knell  of  the  Union.  He  was  still 
living,  at  the  age  of  seventy-seven.  He  saw  what  this 
sectional  rift  portended,  and  he  wrote  to  John  Holmes,  one 
of  his  correspondents,  under  date  of  April  22,  1820: 

This  momentous  question,  like  a  fire  bell  in  the  night,  awakened 
me  and  filled  me  with  terror.  I  considered  it  at  once  as  the  knell  of 
the  Union.  It  is  hushed,  indeed,  for  the  moment.  But  this  is  a 
reprieve  only,  not  a  final  sentence.  A  geographical  line,  coinciding 
with  a  marked  principle,  moral  and  political,  once  conceived  and 
held  up  to  the  angry  passions  of  men,  will  never  be  obliterated  and 
every  new  irritation  will  mark  it  deeper  and  deeper. 

In  short,  there  was  already  an  irrepressible  conflict  in 
our  land.  There  was  a  fixed  opinion  in  the  North  that 
slavery  was  an  evil  which  ought  not  to  be  extended  and 
enlarged.  There  was  a  growing  opinion  in  the  South  that 
such  extension  was  a  vital  necessity  and  that  the  South, 
in  contending  for  it,  was  contending  for  existence.  The 
prevailing  thought  in  that  quarter  was  that  the  southern 
people  were  on  the  defensive,  that  they  were  resisting  aggres 
sion.  In  this  feeling  they  were  sincere  and  they  gave 
expression  to  it  in  very  hot  temper. 

Two  treaties  with  Mexico  following  the  war  with  that 
country  in  1846-48  brought  into  our  possession,  partly  by 
conquest  and  partly  by  purchase,  the  territory  now  embraced 
in  Colorado,  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  Utah,  Nevada,  and  Cali 
fornia.  Slavery  did  not  exist  in  any  part  of  this  region, 

5 


having  been  abolished  and  prohibited  by  the  constitution 
of  Mexico,  but  as  it  had  been  introduced  into  Texas  in 
spite  of  the  local  law,  public  sentiment  in  the  North  was 
keenly  alive  to  the  danger  of  a  similar  result  elsewhere. 
So  when  a  bill  came  before  Congress  in  1846  to  appropriate 
money  preliminary  to  the  first  treaty,  a  proviso  was  moved 
by  Mr.  Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania,  to  the  effect  that  neither 
slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  should  ever  exist  in  any 
territory  to  be  thus  acquired.  The  House  promptly  adopted 
it  but  it  was  rejected  by  the  Senate,  and  the  fight  over  the 
Wilmot  Proviso  continued  for  several  years.  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  a  member  of  Congress  during  two  of  those 
years  and  he  voted  for  the  Wilmot  Proviso  in  one  form  or 
another  about  forty  times. 

The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  in  1848  caused  such 
a  rush  of  immigrants  to  the  Pacific  Coast  that,  while 
Congress  was  still  wrangling  over  the  Wilmot  Proviso  and 
the  spoils  of  the  Mexican  War,  the  new  settlers  in  California 
came  together  in  June,  1849,  formed  a  state  constitution 
prohibiting  slavery,  and  applied  for  admission  to  the  Union. 
Here  was  an  accomplished  fact,  which  could  not  be  ignored 
or  postponed.  Henry  Clay  brought  forward  a  series  of 
bills,  which,  when  finally  passed,  became  known  as  the 
Compromise  Measures  of  1850.  They  included,  among 
other  things,  the  admission  of  California  as  a  free  state  and 
the  organization  of  all  the  other  territory  in  dispute,  with 
out  either  the  prohibition  or  the  admission  of  slavery  therein. 
It  was  Mr.  Clay's  opinion  that  slavery  was  already  prohibited 
there  by  the  law  of  Mexico.  It  was  Mr.  Webster's  opinion 
that  it  was  prohibited  also  by  the  law  of  nature;  that  is,  by 
climate  and  topographical  conditions. 

The  Compromise  Measures  of  1850  were  assumed  by 
all  political  parties  to  be  a  final  settlement  of  the  slavery 
question  as  far  as  Congress  was  concerned.  The  Demo- 

6 


crats  carried  the  presidential  election  of  1852,  and  the  in 
coming  president,  Franklin  Pierce,  in  his  first  message  to 
Congress,  declared  that  the  repose  which  those  measures 
had  brought  to  the  public  councils  should  not  be  disturbed 
during  his  term  of  office,  if  he  had  power  to  prevent  it. 
This  was  a  vain  conception,  for  within  sixty  days  there 
after  he  had  agreed  to  support  a  bill  to  repeal  the  Missouri 
Compromise.  This  agreement  was  made  at  the  instance  of 
Senator  Douglas  of  Illinois,  supported  by  Jefferson  Davis, 
secretary  of  war,  at  an  interview  in  the  White  House  on 
Sunday,  January  22,  1854. 

Douglas  was  then  forty-one  years  of  age.  He  had  been 
in  Congress  ten  years  and  had  reached  the  foremost  place 
there,  his  great  predecessors,  Webster,  Clay,  Calhoun,  and 
John  Quincy  Adams,  having  just  passed  away.  Born  in 
Vermont  in  1813,  he  had  drifted  westward  at  the  age  of 
twenty  to  seek  his  fortune.  He  effected  lodgment  at  Jack 
sonville,  Illinois,  in  1833.  Nobody  ever  began  the  battle 
of  life  in  humbler  surroundings  or  with  smaller  pecuniary 
resources.  Yet  his  advance  was  so  rapid  that  it  seemed  as 
though  he  had  only  to  ask  anything  from  his  fellow-citizens 
in  order  to  have  it  given  to  him  more  abundantly  than  he 
desired.  He  had  filled  the  offices  of  State's  Attorney, 
Member  of  the  Legislature,  Secretary  of  State,  Judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  Representative  in  Congress,  and  Senator 
of  the  United  States,  and  had  been  a  formidable  candidate 
for  the  presidency  hi  the  Democratic  National  Convention 
of  1852  which  nominated  Pierce.  In  the  Democratic  party 
he  had  forged  to  the  front  by  virtue  of  boldness  in  leadership, 
untiring  industry,  boundless  ambition  and  self-confidence, 
engaging  manners,  great  capacity  as  a  party  organizer,  and 
unsurpassed  powers  as  an  orator  and  debater.  He  had  a 
large  head,  surmounted  by  an  abundant  mane,  which  gave 
the  appearance  of  a  lion  prepared  to  roar  or  crush  his 

7 


prey,  and  the  resemblance  was  not  seldom  confirmed  when 
he  opened  his  mouth  on  the  stump  or  in  the  Senate 
chamber.  Although  patriotic  beyond  a  doubt,  he  was 
color  blind  to  moral  principles  in  politics,  and  if  not 
stone  blind  to  the  evils  of  slavery  was  deaf  and  dumb 
to  any  expression  concerning  them.  In  stature  he 
was  only  five  feet  four  inches  high,  but  he  had  earned 
the  title  of  "  Little  Giant "  before  he  ever  held  a  public 
office,  and  he  kept  it  undisputed  till  the  day  of  his  death. 
When  he  began  his  public  career  he  had  for  competitors 
and  rivals  in  his  near  neighborhood,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
Lyman  Trumbull,  Edward  D.  Baker,  O.  H.  Browning, 
Richard  Yates,  and  several  other  men  who  gained 
national  reputation  and  position,  all  of  whom  he  distanced 
in  the  race  for  preferment  up  to  the  time  when  he  linked  his 
fortunes  with  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  In 
1854  he  filled  the  public  eye  in  larger  measure  than  any  other 
American,  not  excepting  President  Buchanan.  He  was  the 
only  man  then  living  who  could  have  carried  that  measure 
through  Congress.  He  was  the  only  northern  man  who 
would  have  had  the  audacity  to  propose  it.  Nor  would  any 
southern  statesman  have  ventured  to  take  such  a  step  then 
if  he  had  not  led  the  way. 

On  the  5th  of  December,  1853,  Senator  Dodge,  of  Iowa, 
introduced  a  bill  to  organize  the  Territory  of  Nebraska, 
embracing  all  the  unorganized  country  west  of  the  state  of 
Missouri  and  north  of  36° 30'  north  latitude.  It  said  nothing 
about  slavery.  It  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Terri 
tories,  of  which  Douglas  was  chairman.  Douglas  reported 
it  back  with  an  amendment  providing  "that  all  questions 
pertaining  to  slavery  in  the  territories,  and  in  the  new  states 
to  be  formed  therefrom  are  to  be  left  to  the  decision  of  the 
people  residing  therein  through  their  appropriate  repre- 
f  sentatives."  In  a  report  accompanying  the  bill  he  said: 

8 


STEPHEN  ARNOLD  DOUGLAS 
From  a  photograph  supposed  to  have  been  made  in  1858 


The  principles  established  by  the  Compromise  Measures  of  1850,  so 
far  as  they  are  applicable  to  territorial  organizations,  are  proposed 
to  be  affirmed  and  carried  into  practical  operation  within  the  limits 
of  the  new  territory. 

This  was  an  unexpected  revelation  and  a  very  startling 
one  to  the  people  of  the  free  states,  who  had  never  imagined 
that  the  Compromise  of  1850  reached  backward  as  well  as 
forward  so  as  to  render  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820 
nugatory  and  void.  Yet  a  careful  reading  of  Douglas' 
amendment  shows  that  it  did  not  repeal  the  Missouri  Com 
promise,  for  it  did  not  open  the  door  to  the  admission  of  any 
slaves.  It  was  merely  a  provision  that  if  the  people  of  the 
territory  should  ask  to  be  admitted  to  the  Union  as  a  slave 
state,  without  ever  having  had  a  slave  in  their  borders,  they 
should  be  allowed  to  come  in.  It  was  hardly  possible  that 
such  a  thing  could  happen. 

Senator  Dixon  of  Kentucky,  the  successor  of  Henry 
Clay,  saw  the  point  at  once.  He  moved  an  amendment  to 
Douglas7  bill  so  as  to  repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise 
outright  and  admit  slavery  to  the  new  territory  if  any 
slave-owners  desired  to  carry  them  there.  Douglas  was 
disconcerted  by  this  motion.  He  went  to  Dixon's  seat  and 
urged  him  to  withdraw  it,  saying  that  it  would  most  prob 
ably  defeat  the  bill  and  prevent  the  organization  of  the 
territory  altogether.  Dixon  was  inflexible.  Douglas  hesi 
tated  a  few  days  but  finally  accepted  Dixon's  amendment, 
and  after  a  desperate  struggle  in  Congress  and  amid  intense 
excitement  throughout  the  country  it  eventually  passed 
both  houses  and  was  approved  by  President  Pierce. 

When  the  bill  actually  became  a  law  there  was  a  politM 
explosion  in  every  northern  state.    The  old  parties 
were  rent  asunder  and  a  new  one  began  to  form  in  order  to 
prevent  the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  new  territories. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  at  this  time  a  country  lawyer  in 

9 


Springfield,  Illinois,  with  a  not  very  lucrative  practice,  but 
he  was  a  very  popular  story-teller.  In  fact,  he  was  not 
exactly  the  leader  of  the  bar.  To  reach  the  front  rank  in 
the  legal  profession  one  must  give  his  undivided  attention 
and  best  energies  to  it.  Lincoln  never  did  so.  He  was, 
first  of  all,  a  politician,  using  this  phrase  in  its  best  sense — a 
man  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of  public  affairs  and 
the  desire  to  participate  therein.  He  had  been  a  member  of 
Congress  one  term,  but  in  1854  he  was  practically  shelved, 
without  a  hope  of  obtaining  any  higher  place  than  the  one 
he  had  filled  last,  or  even  of  obtaining  that  one  again.  He 
belonged  to  the  Whig  party,  which  was  the  minority  party 
in  Illinois.  He  had  followed  Clay  and  Webster  in  sup 
porting  the  Compromise  Measures  of  1850,  including  the 
fugitive  slave  law  of  that  period,  for  although  a  hater  of 
slavery  he  believed  that  the  Constitution  required  the 
extradition  of  slaves  escaping  into  the  free  states. 

He  was  startled  by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise.  Without  that  awakening,  which  came  like  an 
electric  shock  to  all  the  northern  states,  he  would  doubtless 
have  remained  in  comparative  obscurity.  He  would  have 
continued  riding  the  circuit  in  central  Illinois,  making  a 
scanty  living  as  a  lawyer,  entertaining  tavern  loungers 
with  funny  stories,  and  would  have  passed  away  unhonored 
and  unsung.  He  was  now  roused  to  new  activity.  For  the 
first  time  the  thought  broke  upon  him  that  this  country 
could  not  permanently  endure  half  slave  and  half  free.  He 
enunciated  it  to  a  friend  and  fellow-circuit-rider,  Mr.  T. 
Lyle  Dickey,  shortly  after  the  news  arrived  of  the  passage 
of  the  Nebraska  bill.  Dickey  persuaded  him  not  to  give 
public  expression  to  that  thought  at  present,  since  Douglas 
and  his  supporters  would  construe  it  as  a  hope  that  the 
free  states  might  be  separated  from  the  slave  states  and  the 
Union  come  to  an  end.  Lincoln  promised  to  be  careful  of 


his  words  for  the  time  being;  but  to  his  partner,  Herndon, 
he  said  that  the  day  of  compromise  had  now  passed,  that 
either  slavery  or  freedom  must  conquer,  that  they  were 
deadly  antagonists  which  had  thus  far  been  held  apart,  but 
that  some  day  they  would  break  their  bonds  and  come  to 
a  death  grapple,  and  then  the  great  question  would  be 
settled. 

Douglas'  Nebraska  bill  was  based  upon  the  principle  of 
" popular  sovereignty  "  or  "sacred  right  of  self-government" 
or  " right  of  the  people  to  govern  themselves" — three  names 
for  the  same  thing.  Yet  it  was  not  a  new  thing.  It  had 
been  expounded  by  General  Cass,  the  Democratic  nominee 
for  president  in  1848.  It  was  then  termed  "  squatter  sover 
eignty."  "  Popular  sovereignty  "  was  a  more  orotund  phrase 
and  Douglas  was  a  more  orotund  speaker  than  Cass.  He 
made  such  skilful  and  incessant  use  of  it  and  rang  so  many 
changes  on  it,  that  he  finally  called  it  "my  great  principle" 
and  led  many  unthinking  people  to  believe,  not  merely  that 
he  had  been  the  first  to  apply  it  to  our  outlying  territories, 
but  that  he  was  the  original  inventor  of  it  as  a  form  of 
human  government.  It  constituted  the  backbone,  the  piece 
de  resistance,  of  his  speeches  in  Congress  and  everywhere, 
including  the  joint  debates  with  Lincoln. 

Obviously  the  first  thing  to  be  done  in  any  controversy 
with  him  touching  the  Nebraska  bill  would  be  to  expose 
the  ignis  fatuus  of  Popular  Sovereignty. 

The  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debates,  as  commonly  under 
stood,  are  those  of  1858,  seven  in  number,  when  the  two 
champions  were  candidates  for  the  United  States  Senate. 
But  in  fact,  the  debates  of  1858  were  only  a  continuation  of 
the  debate  between  the  same  champions  in  1854,  when  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  a  fresh  subject  of 
dispute  and  when  the  political  elements  from  which  the 
Republican  party  was  cast  were  in  the  boiling  and  bubbling 


stage.  It  was  my  good  fortune  to  hear  the  debates  of  both 
years. 

Douglas  came  home  in  September,  1854,  to  defend  his 
course  in  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise.  He  first 
made  an  attempt  to  do  so  at  Chicago  but  the  people  were 
intensely  hostile  to  him  and  literally  hooted  him  from  the 
platform.  His  next  appearance  was  at  Springfield,  Octo 
ber  3,  where  the  state  fair  was  in  progress.  He  spoke  in  the 
Representative  hall  of  the  state  house.  His  speech  was,  for 
the  most  part,  a  repetition  of  his  arguments  in  the  Senate  on 
the  Nebraska  bill,  a  seductive  presentation  of  the  doctrine 
of  Popular  Sovereignty,  and  an  attempt  to  show  that  the 
Missouri  Compromise  had  been  repealed  in  principle  by  the 
Compromise  Measures  of  1850. 

On  the  following  day  Lincoln  replied  to  Douglas  in  the 
same  hall  (Douglas  himself  being  present)  in  a  great  speech, 
one  of  the  world's  masterpieces  of  argumentative  power  and 
moral  grandeur.  This  was  the  first  speech  made  by  him 
that  gave  a  true  measure  of  his  qualities.  It  was  the  first 
public  occasion  that  laid  a  strong  hold  upon  his  conscience 
and  stirred  the  depths  of  his  nature.  It  was  the  first 
speech  of  his  that  I  was  privileged  to  hear.  I  was  then 
twenty  years  of  age.  The  impression  made  upon  me  was 
overwhelming  and  it  has  lost  nothing  by  the  lapse  of  time. 
I  have  read  it  often  since,  and  always  with  thankfulness  that 
we  had  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  at  that  critical 
juncture,  to  uphold  the  banner  of  righteousness  and  make  a 
rally  ing-point  for  the  lovers  of  freedom  in  the  Northwest. 
It  was  a  profoundly  serious  speech.  The  thought  impressed 
upon  its  hearers  was  their  solemn  responsibility  to  God  and 
man  and  future  generations,  to  uphold  the  principles  of  free 
government,  without  flinching  or  doubting  or  wavering. 
In  the  whole  twenty-nine  pages  of  the  speech  there  is 
not  a  line  of  levity,  nothing  to  provoke  a  smile,  although 


Mr.  Lincoln  was  an  unrivaled  master  of  humor  on  all  proper 
occasions.  He  was  at  this  time  forty-five  years  of  age,  at 
the  prime  of  life,  at  the  maturity  of  his  powers.  He  never 
made  a  better  speech  than  this  one,  although  the  Cooper 
Institute  speech  is  on  the  same  plane  with  it.  Of  the  latter 
Horace  Greeley  said  that  it  was  the  greatest  speech  he  had 
ever  listened  to,  although  he  had  heard  several  of  Webster's 
best.  In  Mr.  Lincoln's  complete  writings  the  speech  we 
have  been  considering  is  styled  the  Peoria  speech,  because 
it  was  delivered  at  Peoria  twelve  days  later,  and  soon  after 
ward  published  from  his  own  manuscript,  although  he  did 
not  use  any  notes  whatever  when  speaking. 

Before  coming  to  the  joint  debates  of  1858,  I  will  briefly 
note  Mr.  Lincoln's  answer  to  Douglas'  Popular  Sovereignty 
dogma,  or  "sacred  right  of  self-government."  He  said  that 
the  right  of  self-government  was  absolutely  and  eternally 
right  but  that  whether  it  included  the  right  to  hold  negroes 
as  slaves  in  Nebraska,  or  anywhere,  depended  upon  whether 
a  negro  was,  or  was  not,  a  man.  If  he  was  not  a  man,  he 
might  be  reduced  to  servitude  without  any  violation  of  the 
doctrine  of  self-government;  but  if  he  was  a  man, he,  too, had 
the  right  to  govern  himself.  To  deny  him  that  right  was  a 
total  destruction  of  the  doctrine  of  self-government.  "If 
it  is  a  sacred  right  for  the  people  of  Nebraska,"  he  added, 
"to  take  and  hold  slaves  there,  it  is  equally  their  sacred 
right  to  buy  them  where  they  can  buy  them  cheapest,  and 
that  will  undoubtedly  be  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  provided 
you  consent  not  to  hang  men  for  going  there  to  buy  them." 
In  his  later  debates  Mr.  Lincoln  applied  to  this  Popular 
Sovereignty  humbug  a  more  crisp,  sententious  definition, 
saying  it  meant  that  "if  A  wanted  to  make  a  slave  of  B,  no 
third  man  had  a  right  to  object." 

Between  the  debates  of  1854  and  those  of  1858  two  things 
of  importance  occurred.  One  was  the  Kansas  war  between 

13 


the  Free  State  men  and  the  Pro-slavery  men.  Included  in 
this  strife  were  the  raids  of  non-residents,  commonly  called 
"border  ruffians,"  from  Missouri  into  Kansas,  to  seize  the 
ballot  boxes  and  control  the  elections.  The  other  was  the 
attempt  of  the  Pro-slavery  party  in  1857  to  get  Kansas 
admitted  to  the  Union  as  a  state  under  the  Lecompton 
Constitution,  without  submitting  it  to  the  people  for  rati 
fication  or  rejection.  In  this  attempt  President  Buchanan 
sided  with  the  Lecomptonites,  although  he  had  assured  the 
governor  of  the  territory,  Robert  J.  Walker,  that  the  Con 
stitution  should  be  so  submitted.  Douglas  took  the  con 
trary  view  and  insisted  that  the  Constitution  ought  to  be 
submitted  to  the  vote  of  the  people  at  a  fair  election,  and 
that  any  different  course  would  be  a  barefaced  fraud  upon 
Kansas,  and  a  national  crime.  To  this  position  he  adhered 
in  spite  of  the  whole  power  of  the  administration,  but  he 
said  repeatedly  that  he  cared  not  whether  slavery  was  voted 
up  or  voted  down.  His  opposition  to  the  Lecompton  meas 
ure  did  not  change  the  majority  in  the  Senate,  but  it  did 
have  that  effect  in  the  House.  It  killed  Lecompton.  His 
course  in  this  matter  was  so  great  a  reinforcement  to  the 
Republicans — it  took  such  a  burden  of  apprehension  and 
dread  off  their  minds,  and  it  held  out  such  promise  of  future 
assistance — that  the  leaders  of  the  party  in  the  eastern 
states,  including  Seward  and  Greeley,  strongly  favored  the 
policy  of  joining  forces  to  re-elect  Douglas,  whose  senatorial 
term  was  about  to  expire.  The  Republicans  of  Illinois, 
however,  did  not  think  that  Douglas  could  be  trusted  under 
all  possible  circumstances.  They  had  to  judge  of  his  future 
course  by  his  past,  and  they  accordingly  rejected  the  advice 
of  their  eastern  friends  and  nominated  Lincoln  as  their 
candidate  for  the  Senate.  If  they  had  followed  the  advice 
of  their  eastern  friends,  the  Lincoln  and  Douglas  debates 
of  1858  would  never  have  taken  place,  Lincoln  would  not 

14 


/7x^2xvu^X^     /l^OL, 


[INDORSEMENT] 


^/t          (*£  ^IS^^tTL^^ 


( 


have  been  brought  into  the  limelight  and  made  a  presi 
dential  possibility  in  1860,  and  the  whole  course  of  history 
would  have  been  changed.  Douglas  was  the  cynosure  of  all 
eyes  then.  The  people  of  distant  states  and  communities 
came  to  know  Lincoln,  not  because  of  his  own  merits,  but 
because  he  was  pitted  against  Douglas.  Few  persons  out 
side  of  Illinois  supposed  that  he  would  stand  up  long  under 
the  blows  of  his  expert  and  hard-hitting  antagonist. 

The  debates  of  1858  were  the  result  of  a  challenge  given 
by  Lincoln  to  Douglas  to  divide  the  time  and  address  the 
people  from  the  same  platform  throughout  the  campaign. 
Douglas  hesitated  about  accepting  the  challenge.  His 
friends  urged  him  to  decline  it,  not  because  they  feared  that 
Douglas  would  be  worsted  in  the  encounter,  but  because 
his  greater  fame  would  draw  crowds  of  people  who  would 
otherwise  never  hear  Lincoln  at  all.  This  was  quite  true. 
Although  Douglas  is  now  remembered  chiefly  because  of 
his  association  with  Lincoln,  the  case  was  far  different 
then. 

Douglas,  however,  did  not  dare  to  refuse  the  challenge. 
If  he  had  refused,  the  Republicans  would  have  said  that  he 
was  afraid  to  meet  Lincoln  on  the  stump,  and  there  would 
have  been  a  modicum  of  truth  in  the  statement.  He 
therefore  accepted  the  challenge  but  he  limited  it  to  seven 
debates  in  the  whole  state. 

The  main  issue  of  the  campaign  was  the  extension  of 
slavery  to  new  territory.  Lincoln's  contention  was  that  it 
ought  not  to  be  extended.  Why  ought  it  not  to  be  extended  ? 
Because  it  was  wrong  per  se  and  because  it  kept  the  country 
in  a  constant  broil  and  strife  and  tended  to  disrupt  the 
Union.  At  the  convention  where  Lincoln  was  nominated 
for  senator  he  read  a  brief  speech  from  manuscript.  It  was 
a  calm,  dispassionate  argument.  At  or  near  the  begin 
ning  of  it  he  used  the  words  which  have  been  so  often 

15 


quoted:  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I 
believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently  ha^f 
slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dis 
solved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect 
it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all 
the  other/'  etc.  He  then  proceeded  to  show  the  steps  taken 
during  recent  years  to  make  slavery  a  national  instead  of  a 
local  institution  by  means  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  and  by  the 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  case.  In 
this  case  the  court  held  that  no  negro  slave,  or  descendant 
of  such  slave,  could  bring  a  suit  for  his  freedom  in  the  courts 
of  the  United  States.  The  court  decided  also  in  this  case 
that  any  citizen  had  a  constitutional  right  to  migrate  to  any 
territory  with  his  slave  property  and  hold  slaves  there. 
In  order  to  make  slavery  a  national  instead  of  a  local  institu 
tion,  Mr.  Lincoln  contended,  it  was  only  necessary  for  the 
people  generally  to  fall  into  the  habit  of  not  caring  whether 
slavery  was  voted  down  or  voted  up,  and  of  acquiescing  in 
the  doctrine  that  negroes  had  no  rights  which  they  could 
enforce  in  the  courts  of  law. 

I  happened  to  be  on  the  platform  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  a 
reporter,  when  this  speech  was  delivered,  and  after  the  con 
vention  adjourned  he  handed  me  his  manuscript  and  asked 
me  to  read  the  proof  of  it  at  the  office  of  the  Illinois  State 
Journal,  where  it  had  already  been  put  in  type.  He  said 
to  me  that  he  had  been  urged  by  his  friends  in  Springfield 
not  to  use  the  words,  "this  government  cannot  endure 
permanently  half  slave  and  half  free,"  because  the  phrase 
would  be  misinterpreted  and  misrepresented  and  would 
probably  cause  his  defeat  in  the  election,  but  that  his  mind 
was  made  up  and  he  was  determined  to  use  those  very 
words,  because  they  were  true  and  because  the  tune  had 
come  to  say  so.  He  said  he  would  rather  be  defeated  in  the 
election  than  keep  silent  or  half  silent  any  longer. 

16 


At  this  convention  Lincoln  was  nominated  for  United 
States  senator  by  the  Republican  party  on  the  motion  of 
Charles  L.  Wilson  of  the  Chicago  Evening  Journal.  It  was 
not  customary  to  nominate  men  for  the  Senate  in  this  way. 
I  think  this  was  the  first  occasion  on  which  such  a  nomina 
tion  had  been  made  by  any  political  party.  Wilson  took 
this  step  without  consultation  with  anybody,  in  order  to 
put  a  stop  to  a  rumor  which  had  been  put  in  circulation 
by  the  supporters  of  Douglas  that  if  the  Republicans  should 
win  the  next  legislature  they  would  elect  John  Wentworth  as 
senator.  To  put  an  end  to  this  clap-trap  Wilson  made  his 
motion  in  the  convention,  and  it  was  adopted  unanimously. 

Douglas  was  a  past-master  of  the  art  of  political  display 
and  dazzle.  He  started  on  this  campaign  in  the  directors' 
car  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railway  and  with  a  platform  car 
attached,  on  which  was  mounted  a  brass  cannon  with  a 
supply  of  ammunition  to  announce  his  arrival  at  the  places 
where  he  was  to  speak.  These  conveniences  were  placed 
at  his  service  by  George  B.  McClellan,  the  vice-president 
of  the  road,  afterward  General  McClellan.  Douglas  was 
accompanied  also  by  the  lady  to  whom  he  had  been  married 
two  years  earlier,  formerly  Miss  Adele  Cutts,  of  Washington 
City,  a  grandniece  of  Dolly  Madison.  I  saw  her  frequently 
during  the  campaign,  and  I  never  beheld  a  more  queenly  per 
son.  Her  mere  presence  gained  votes  for  her  husband,  with 
out  any  effort  of  her  own. 

The  first  joint  debate  in  pursuance  of  the  agreement  was 
at  Ottawa,  August  21.  It  took  place  in  the  open  air,  as 
did  all  the  other  debates.  The  state  was  now  pretty  well 
stirred  up.  Expectation  was  on  tiptoe.  The  people  within 
reaching  distance  of  Ottawa  by  rail  or  by  water  or  by 
wagon  road  were  astir.  Local  committees  on  both  sides 
had  made  the  customary  arrangements  of  processions  on 
foot  and  on  horseback,  with  banners  and  band  wagons  and 

17 


every  kind  of  apparatus,  including  cannon,  to  announce  the 
arrival  of  the  champions.  My  own  anticipations  regarding 
the  assemblage  were  high  but  the  reality  surpassed  them. 
The  sky  was  cloudless,  but  it  had  been  very  dry  of  late, 
so  that  the  dust  rose  at  every  slight  movement  on  the 
surface.  I  had  early  taken  a  position  on  elevated  ground 
overlooking  the  town  and  surrounding  country.  Some 
hours  before  the  time  fixed  for  the  speaking,  clouds  of  dust 
began  to  rise  on  the  horizon  along  the  roads  leading  to  the 
place,  from  all  points  of  the  compass,  and  these  clouds 
became  more  frequent  and  more  dense  as  the  hours 
rolled  on. 

There  were  large  wagons  with  four-horse  teams  for  the 
accommodation  of  political  clubs,  heavily  loaded  and  bearing 
canvas  signs  indicating  their  habitation  and  their  political 
belonging.  Long  before  the  speakers  and  reporters  ascended 
the  platform,  the  public  square  where  the  meeting  took  place, 
and  the  avenues  leading  thereto,  were  densely  packed  with 
human  beings,  who  had  also  swarmed  upon  the  platform 
itself  and  its  timber  supports,  and  had  filled  the  windows  of 
all  houses  within  earshot.  The  crowd  was  so  dense  that  the 
speakers  and  their  appointed  escort  had  much  difficulty  in 
reaching  their  places  and  while  they  were  doing  so  one  corner 
of  the  platform  gave  way  with  its  superincumbent  popula 
tion,  but  nobody  was  hurt.  At  all  the  other  joint  debates, 
except  those  of  Jonesboro  and  Alton,  which  were  in  the  part 
of  Illinois  called  "  Egypt,"  similar  crowds  and  scenes  were 
witnessed,  the  largest  assemblage  of  all,  according  to  my 
memoranda,  being  at  Galesburg. 

Douglas  opened  the  debate  with  one  hour  at  Ottawa. 
It  was  in  his  best  style.  He  had  a  clarion  voice  and  a 
smooth,  compulsive,  unhesitating  flow  of  words,  without 
ornament,  going  straight  to  the  subject-matter  with  grace 
of  manner  and  rapidity  and  ease  of  delivery  which  made  it  a 

18 


pleasure  to  listen  to  him.  But  this  fluency  covered  many 
rocks  and  quicksands.  He  was  gifted  with  the  faculty  of 
gliding  deftly  from  one  thing  to  another,  turning  the  hearers' 
attention  away  from  the  real  subject  of  debate  so  adroitly 
that  the  break  would  not  be  noticed,  and  presently  the 
audience  would  be  swimming  in  a  new  channel  in  company 
with  him,  not  having  missed  the  connection  with  the  main 
theme.  This  skill  in  legerdemain  constituted  the  chief 
part  of  Douglas'  first  hour  at  Ottawa,  and  the  only  part 
which  need  be  noticed  here.  It  related  to  Lincoln's  saying 
that  this  government  could  not  endure  permanently  half 
slave  and  half  free.  Why  not?  he  asked.  Didn't  our 
fathers  make  it  so  ?  Didn't  Washington  and  Jefferson, 
Franklin  and  Madison,  Hamilton  and  Jay  leave  each  state 
perfectly  free  to  do  as  it  pleased  about  slavery  ?  Why  could 
it  not  exist  on  the  same  principles  still?  "Suppose,"  he 
said,  "  this  doctrine  of  uniformity  preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln, 
that  the  states  should  all  be  free  or  all  slave,  had  prevailed, 
what  would  have  been  the  result?"  As  there  were  then 
twelve  slave-holding  states  and  only  one  free  state,  slavery 
would  have  been  fastened  upon  the  whole  thirteen.  "If 
uniformity  had  been  adopted  when  the  government  was 
established  it  must  inevitably  have  been  uniformity  of 
slavery  everywhere  or  else  uniformity  of  negro  citizenship 
and  negro  equality  everywhere." 

Here  was  the  assumption  adroitly  introduced  that 
Lincoln  was  "preaching"  the  doctrine  of  uniformity,  and 
that  uniformity  meant  that  all  states  must  be  free  or 
all  slave,  and  that  if  all  were  free  then  negro  equality 
must  prevail  everywhere.  He  went  on  to  say  that  he 
did  not  question  Mr.  Lincoln's  conscientious  belief  that 
the  negro  was  made  his  equal  and  his  brother,  but  for 
his  own  part  he  denied  such  equality  and  brotherhood 
altogether. 


It  perhaps  occurred  to  him  then  that  he  was  talking  to 
an  audience  composed  in  large  part  of  anti-slavery  men.  So 
he  added  these  words: 

I  do  not  hold  that  because  the  negro  is  our  inferior  therefore  he 
ought  to  be  a  slave.  By  no  means  can  such  a  conclusion  be  drawn 
from  what  I  have  said.  On  the  contrary,  I  hold  that  humanity  and 
Christianity  both  require  that  the  negro  shall  have  and  enjoy  every 
right,  every  privilege,  and  every  immunity  consistent  with  the  safety 
of  the  society  in  which  he  lives.  The  question  then  arises  what 
rights  and  privileges  are  consistent  with  the  public  good.  This  is  a 
question  which  each  state  and  each  territory  must  decide  for  itself. 

So  this  fine  outburst  of  justice  and  generosity  to  the 
negro  ended  in  the  reaffirmance  of  the  "sacred  right  of 
self-government,"  meaning  that  if  A  and  B  want  to  make 
slaves  of  C  and  D,  no  other  person  has  the  right  to  object. 

Douglas  concluded  his  half -hour  with  the  expressed 
belief  that  if  the  new  doctrine  "preached  by  Lincoln/' 
i.e.,  the  doctrine  of  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other,  should 
prevail,  it  would  dissolve  the  Union. 

Douglas  ended  in  a  whirlwind  of  applause  and  Lincoln 
began  to  speak  in  a  slow  and  rather  awkward  way.  He  had 
a  thin  tenor,  or  rather  falsetto,  voice,  almost  as  high- 
pitched  as  a  boatswain's  whistle.  It  could  be  heard  farther 
and  it  had  better  wearing  qualities  than  Douglas'  rich 
baritone,  but  it  was  not  so  impressive  to  the  listeners. 
Moreover,  his  words  did  not  flow  in  a  rushing,  unbroken 
stream  like  Douglas'.  He  sometimes  stopped  for  repairs 
before  finishing  a  sentence,  especially  at  the  beginning  of  a 
speech.  After  getting  fairly  started,  and  lubricated,  as  it 
were,  he  went  on  without  any  noticeable  hesitation,  but  he 
never  had  the  ease  and  grace  and  finish  of  his  adversary. 
Both  his  mind  and  his  body  worked  more  slowly  than 
Douglas'.  Nobody  ever  caught  Douglas  napping.  He  was 
quick  as  a  flash  to  answer  any  question  put  to  him  in  debate, 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Photograph   by  Alexander  Hesler,    Chicago;    probably 
made  in  1858. 


and  not  infrequently  his  reply,  although  a  manifest  non 
sequitur,  would  be  delivered  with  a  wealth  and  overplus  of 
words  and  an  air  of  assurance,  and  pity  for  the  ignorance 
of  his  questioner,  quite  confusing  to  the  latter.  Lincoln 
required  time  to  gather  himself  in  such  emergencies,  but  he 
never  failed  to  find  his  footing  and  to  maintain  it  firmly 
when  he  had  found  it.  What  he  lacked  in  mental  agility 
and  alertness  he  made  up  in  moral  superiority  and  blazing 
earnestness  that  came  from  his  heart  and  went  straight  to 
those  of  his  hearers. 

As  Lincoln  had  not  preached  any  doctrine  of  all  one  thing 
or  all  the  other,  but  had  merely  pointed  out  the  tendency 
and  logical  consequence  of  the  spread  of  slavery  into  new 
regions,  it  was  easy  for  him  to  expose  Douglas'  sophistry  and 
to  show,  as  he  said,  that  it  was  "a  specious  and  fantastic 
arrangement  of  words  by  which  a  man  can  prove  a  horse 
chestnut  to  be  a  chestnut  horse."  And  in  regard  to  negro 
equality,  it  was  not  difficult  to  point  out  that  Douglas  had 
put  civil  rights  and  political  and  social  privileges  all  in  a 
mortar  and  brayed  them  together  in  such  fashion  that  the 
several  things  could  not  be  easily  distinguished.  After 
separating  them  and  defining  the  various  kinds  of  equality 
that  might  exist  in  mundane  affairs  he  affirmed  that,  in  the 
right  to  eat  the  bread  that  his  own  hand  had  earned,  the 
negro  was  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas  and  of  every  living 
man.  This  may  seem  now  a  very  trivial  matter,  not  worth 
recalling,  but  in  fact  Douglas  never  allowed  Lincoln  to  drop 
it.  He  continued  to  charge  him  with  the  desire  to  bring 
about  negro  equality  and  amalgamation,  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter. 

Six  days  later  the  two  champions  met  again  at  Freeport. 
This  debate  has  become  the  most  famous  of  the  whole 
series  by  reason  of  a  question  which  Lincoln  put  to  Douglas 
and  which  the  latter  answered.  Certain  questions  had  been 


put  by  Douglas  to  Lincoln  at  Ottawa  which  were  not  of 
much  consequence  in  the  long  run,  and  when  Lincoln 
answered  them  he  claimed  the  right  to  ask  an  equal  number 
in  return.  Among  them  was  this:  "Can  the  people  of  a 
United  States  territory,  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wish 
of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  its 
limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state  constitution?" 

Douglas'  Popular  Sovereignty  and  his  whole  campaign 
were  bottomed  on  the  idea  that  the  people  of  a  territory 
could  admit  slavery,  or  exclude  it,  just  as  the  majority 
might  decide.  But  the  southern  people,  particularly  those 
of  the  Cotton  States,  had  come  by  slow  degrees  to  a  differ 
ent  opinion.  As  long  ago  as  1848,  William  L.  Yancey,  of 
Alabama,  who  has  been  rightly  styled  the  "orator  of  seces 
sion,"  laid  down  the  doctrine  that  the  people  of  a  territory 
could  not,  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state  constitution, 
prevent  any  citizen  of  the  United  States  from  settling  in 
such  territory  with  his  property,  whether  slave  property 
or  other.  This  doctrine  had  now  received  the  sanction  of 
the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  case. 

On  the  evening  before  the  Freeport  debate  Lincoln  had  a 
conference  with  some  of  his  party  friends  at  which  the  ques 
tion  was  considered  whether  it  would  be  wise  to  put  the 
foregoing  question  to  Douglas  or  not.  All  of  the  gentlemen 
present  counseled  him  not  to  do  so  because  Douglas  would 
reply  in  the  affirmative  in  order  to  save  his  election  as 
senator. 

It  was  Lincoln's  opinion  that  Douglas  was  the  only 
Democrat  who  could  command  sufficient  strength  in  the 
North  to  be  elected  president  in  1860,  and  that  if  he  were 
not  nominated  the  Republicans  would  win  that  fight.  It 
was  his  opinion  also  that  if  Douglas  should  reply  that  the 
people  of  a  territory  could  exclude  slavery,  the  South  would 
turn  against  him,  and  he  could  not  get  the  nomination  for 

22 


president  in  1860  or  any  other  time.  So  he  decided  to  put 
the  question,  and  when  his  friends  still  remonstrated,  saying 
that  he  was  throwing  away  the  battle,  he  said:  "I  am  after 
larger  game;  the  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a  hundred  of  this." 
Of  course,  neither  he  nor  anybody  else  then  anticipated  that 
the  larger  game  of  1860  would  be  bagged  by  himself. 

This  was  not  the  first  time  that  Douglas  had  been  con 
fronted  with  this  puzzling  query.  Senator  Trumbull  had 
put  it  to  him  in  a  debate  in  the  Senate  more  than  two  years 
earlier,  on  the  gih  of  June,  1856.  At  that  time,  however, 
the  Dred  Scot  decision  had  not  been  rendered.  So  Douglas 
replied  that  it  was  a  judicial  question  and  that  he  and  all 
good  Democrats  would  conform  to  the  decision  when  it 
should  be  made.  After  the  decision  was  made  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  territorial  unfriendliness  as  a  means  for  keeping 
slavery  out  of  a  territory  notwithstanding  it  had  a  legal 
right  to  go  in,  and  he  announced  this  doctrine,  before  the 
joint  debates  began,  in  two  public  speeches  in  Illinois,  at  one 
of  which  Lincoln  himself  was  present. 

Douglas'  reply  at  Freeport  was  that,  no  matter  what  the 
Supreme  Court  might  decide,  the  people  of  a  territory  could 
exclude  slavery  by  failing  to  give  it  legal  protection,  or  by 
enacting  unfriendly  legislation.  "  Slavery  cannot  exist  a 
day  or  an  hour  anywhere,"  he  said,  "unless  it  is  supported 

by  local  police  regulations Hence  no  matter  what 

the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  may  be  on  that  abstract 
question,  still  the  right  of  the  people  to  make  a  slave  territory 
or  a  free  territory  is  perfect  and  complete  under  the  Nebraska 
bill." 

The  next  joint  debate  took  place  at  Jonesboro,  in  "  Lower 
Egypt."  This  was  in  a  region  where  the  Republican  votes 
were  so  few  that  they  were  usually  classified  as  "scattering." 
The  audience  was  the  smallest  of  the  series,  rather  less  than 
one  thousand.  Mr.  Lincoln  here  took  up  Douglas'  Freeport 

23 


speech  and  demolished  it  completely.  He  showed  that  it 
was  not  true  that  slavery  could  not  exist  unless  supported  by 
local  police  regulations,  for  in  fact  slavery  always  began 
without  legislation  and  so  continued  until  it  became  so 
extensive  as  to  require  legislation  to  regulate  and  support  it. 
It  began  in  this  way  in  our  own  country  in  1619.  Dred 
Scott  himself  was  held  as  a  slave  in  Minnesota  without  any 
local  police  regulations.  But  if  citizens  had  a  constitutional 
right  to  take  slaves  into  a  territory  and  hold  them  there  as 
property,  the  local  legislature  would  be  bound  to  afford  them 
all  needful  protection,  and  failing  to  do  so  Congress  would 
be  bound  to  supply  the  deficiency.  The  logic  of  this  posi 
tion  was  unassailable.  The  only  way  that  Douglas  could 
reply  was  by  likening  slavery  to  liquor-selling,  saying  that 
if  a  man  should  take  a  stock  of  liquors  to  a  territory,  his 
right  to  sell  it  there  would  be  subject  to  the  local  law  and 
if  that  were  unfriendly  it  would  drive  him  out  just  as 
effectually  as  though  there  were  a  constitutional  prohibi 
tion  of  liquor-selling.  This  was  another  example  of  his 
skill  in  juggling  with  words.  If  liquor-selling  in  territories 
were  a  constitutional  right  no  territorial  law  could  render 
that  right  nugatory. 

Although  Douglas'  answer  at  Freeport  blocked  his  road 
,  to  the  Charleston  nomination,  it  saved  him  the  senatorship. 
If  he  had  said  that  the  people  of  a  territory  could  not,  under 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  keep  slavery  out  of  a  territory,  his 
whole  fabric  of  Popular  Sovereignty  and  sacred  right  of 
self-government  would  have  fallen  into  ruin  and  he  would 
have  been  buried  immediately  under  the  heap. 

After  the  Freeport  joint  debate  and  before  that  of  Jones- 
boro,  we  went  to  Carlinville,  Macoupin  County,  where 
John  M.  Palmer  divided  the  time  with  Mr.  Lincoln.  From 
this  place  we  went  to  Clinton,  DeWitt  County,  via  Spring 
field  and  Decatur.  During  this  journey  an  incident 

24 


occurred  which  gave  unbounded  mirth  to  Mr.  Lincoln  at 
my  expense. 

We  left  Springfield  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  for 
Decatur,  where  we  were  to  change  cars  and  take  the  north 
bound  train  on  the  Illinois  Central  Railway.  I  was  very 
tired  and  I  curled  myself  up  as  best  I  could  on  the  seat  to 
take  a  nap,  asking  Mr.  Lincoln  to  wake  me  up  at  Decatur, 
which  he  promised  to  do.  I  went  to  sleep,  and  when  I  did 
awake  I  had  the  sensation  of  having  been  asleep  a  long  time. 
It  was  daylight  and  I  knew  that  we  should  have  reached 
Decatur  before  midnight.  Mr.  Lincoln's  seat  was  vacant. 
While  I  was  pulling  myself  together,  the  conductor  opened 
the  door  of  the  car  and  shouted,  " State  Line!"  This  was 
the  name  of  a  shabby  little  town  on  the  border  of  Indiana. 
There  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  get  out  and  wait  for  the  next 
train  going  back  to  Decatur.  About  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening  I  found  my  way  to  Clinton.  The  meeting  was  over, 
of  course,  and  the  Chicago  Tribune  had  lost  its  expected 
report,  and  I  was  out  of  pocket  for  railroad  fares.  I  wended 
my  way  to  the  house  of  Mr.  C.  H.  Moore,  where  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  staying  and  where  I  too  had  been  an  expected  guest. 
When  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  me  coming  up  the  garden  path,  his 
lungs  began  to  crow  like  a  chanticleer,  and  I  thought  he 
would  laugh,  sans  intermission,  an  hour  by  his  dial.  He 
paused  long  enough  to  say  that  he  also  had  fallen  asleep 
and  did  not  wake  up  till  the  train  was  starting/row  Decatur. 
He  had  very  nearly  been  carried  past  the  station  himself, 
and,  in  his  haste  to  get  out,  had  forgotten  all  about  his 
promise  to  waken  me.  Then  he  began  to  laugh  again. 
The  affair  was  so  irresistibly  funny,  in  his  view,  that  he 
told  the  incident  several  times  in  Washington  City  when  I 
chanced  to  meet  him,  after  he  became  president,  to  any 
company  who  might  be  present,  and  with  such  contagious 
drollery  that  all  who  heard  it  would  shake  with  laughter. 

25 


The  Galesburg  meeting  came  on  October  7,  the  largest  of 
the  series  in  point  of  numbers  in  attendance.  Douglas  made 
the  opening  speech  but  it  was  only  a  repetition  of  his  set 
speech  about  his  doctrine  of  Popular  Sovereignty  and  what 
he  called  Lincoln's  doctrine  of  negro  equality.  Enlarging 
upon  the  odious  features  of  the  latter,  he  had  something 
to  say  about  Thomas  Jefferson  and  the  words  used  by  Jeffer 
son  in  writing  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  "that  all 
men  are  created  equal,"  etc.  He  affirmed  that  as  Jefferson 
was  himself  a  slave-holder  he  never  could  have  intended  to 
include  negroes  in  that  phrase.  This  gave  Lincoln  the 
opportunity  to  unbosom  himself  on  the  subject  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  a  theme  that  always  brought 
out  his  best  powers.  The  Declaration  was  to  him  as  Holy 
Writ.  He  regarded  it  as  the  moral  bedrock  and  foundation 
stone  of  our  whole  system  of  government.  Nobody  could 
question  its  sacredness  in  his  presence  without  arousing  his 
hot  indignation.  In  reply  to  Douglas'  remarks  on  this 
theme  he  said: 

I  believe  the  entire  records  of  the  world,  from  the  date  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  up  to  within  three  years  ago,  may  be 
searched  in  vain  for  one  single  affirmation  from  one  single  man  that 
the  negro  was  not  included  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  I 
think  I  may  defy  Judge  Douglas  to  show  that  he  ever  said  so,  that 
Washington  ever  said  so,  that  any  president  ever  said  so,  that  any 
member  of  Congress  ever  said  so,  until  the  necessities  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party  in  regard  to  slavery  had  to  invent  that  affirmation.  And 
I  will  remind  Judge  Douglas  and  this  audience  that  while  Mr.  Jefferson 
was  the  owner  of  slaves,  as  undoubtedly  he  was,  in  speaking  upon  this 
very  subject  he  used  the  strong  language  that  he  trembled  for  his 
country  when  he  remembered  that  God  was  just;  and  I  will  offer  the 
highest  premium  in  my  power  to  Judge  Douglas  if  he  will  show  that 
he,  in  all  his  life,  ever  uttered  a  sentiment  at  all  akin  to  that  of  Jefferson. 

The  next  meeting  was  at  Quincy,  October  13.  Here 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  the  opening  and  he  employed  it  in  showing 

26 


what  were  the  true  issues  of  the  campaign.  The  funda 
mental  difference  between  parties  arose  from  the  fact  that 
domestic  slavery  existed  in  the  land  and  that  it  was  a 
disturbing  element,  leading  to  controversy  between  persons 
who  thought  that  slavery  was  wrong  and  others  who  did 
not  think  it  wrong.  Those  who  thought  it  was  evil  and  a 
disturbing  element  and  a  breeder  of  controversy  were  bound 
to  use  their  influence  and  their  votes  in  such  ways  as  to 
prevent  it  from  increasing  and  overspreading  new  territories 
and  thereby  becoming  more  harmful  and  disturbing  than 
before.  He  enlarged  upon  this  theme,  constructing  a 
masterly  argument  in  support  of  the  Republican  party, 
which  was  then  only  two  years  old,  and  had  taken  part  in 
only  one  presidential  contest.  He  did  not,  however,  indulge 
in  any  offensive  language  toward  the  southern  people.  His 
allusions  to  them  were  generally  in  terms  implying  that  they 
were  the  product  and  the  victims  of  a  bad  social  system,  not 
the  architects  and  designers  of  it. 

When  Douglas  made  his  reply  he  said  that  if  we  would 
all  mind  our  own  business  and  let  our  neighbors  alone  this 
Republic  could  exist  forever  divided  into  free  and  slave 
states;  which  gave  Lincoln  the  opportunity  to  thank  him 
for  his  public  announcement  that  his  political  theories  con 
templated  that  slavery  should  last  forever. 

The  last  debate  took  place  at  Alton,  October  15.  At  this 
meeting  Douglas'  voice  was  scarcely  audible.  It  was  worn 
out  by  incessant  speaking,  not  at  the  seven  joint  debates 
only,  but  at  nearly  a  hundred  separate  meetings.  At  Alton 
he  was  so  hoarse  that  he  could  not  be  distinctly  heard  more 
than  twenty  feet  from  the  platform.  Yet  he  maintained  the 
same  resolute  bearing,  the  same  look  of  calm  self-confidence 
that  he  had  shown  at  the  beginning.  Lincoln's  voice  was  not 
in  the  least  impaired  although  he  had  made  as  many  speeches 
additional  to  the  joint  debates  as  Douglas  had. 

27 


One  instance  of  Lincoln's  drollery  comes  to  my  mind 
connected  with  the  Alton  debate.  Douglas  had  the  opening 
speech  here.  Lincoln  was  occupying  a  seat  in  the  rear 
of  the  platform.  His  next  neighbor  was  a  young  lady 
friend  with  whom  he  had  been  engaged  in  conversation  before 
the  debate  began.  He  was  holding  in  his  lap  a  linen  over 
garment  to  protect  himself  from  the  dust.  When  Douglas 
had  finished  his  opening  speech  Lincoln  rose  and  handed 
his  linen  duster  to  the  young  lady  and  said  in  a  low  tone 
of  voice:  "Now  hold  my  coat  while  I  stone  Stephen." 

The  Alton  debate  was  a  general  summing-up  of  issues  on 
the  part  of  both  speakers.  The  only  noticeable  feature 
was  the  following  paragraph  from  Lincoln: 

This  is  the  issue  that  will  continue  in  this  country  when  these 
poor  tongues  of  Judge  Douglas  and  myself  shall  be  silent.  It  is  the 
eternal  struggle  between  these  two  principles — right  and  wrong — 
throughout  the  world.  They  are  the  two  principles  that  have  stood 
face  to  face  from  the  beginning  of  time  and  will  ever  continue  to 
struggle.  The  one  is  the  common  right  of  humanity,  the  other  the 
divine  right  of  kings.  It  is  the  same  spirit  in  whatever  shape  it  de 
velops  itself.  It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says,'  'You  toil  and  work 
and  earn  bread,  and  I'll  eat  it."  No  matter  in  what  shape  it  comes, 
whether  from  the  mouth  of  a  king  who  seeks  to  bestride  the  people 
of  his  own  nation  and  live  by  the  fruit  of  their  labor  or  from  one 
race  of  men  as  an  apology  for  enslaving  another  race,  it  is  the  same 
tyrannical  principle. 

I  was  present  at  most  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  separate  meetings 
as  well  as  at  all  of  the  joint  debates,  as  reporter  and  corre 
spondent  of  the  Chicago  Press  and  Tribune,  and  I  was  struck 
with  admiration  and  wonder  that  Lincoln  hardly  ever 
repeated  himself.  Each  speech,  no  matter  how  small  the 
audience,  seemed  to  be  a  new  one,  although  the  pabulum  was 
the  same  and  some  particular  phrases  were  in  frequent  use. 
I  once  asked  him  how  he  could  find  fresh  material  day  after 
day,  while  Douglas'  habit  was  to  repeat  the  same  speech  at 

28 


his  small  meetings  everywhere.  He  said  that  for  his  own 
part  he  could  not  repeat  a  speech  the  second  time  although  he 
might  make  one  bearing  some  similarity  to  a  former  one. 
The  subject  with  which  he  was  charged  was  crowding  for 
utterance  all  the  time;  it  was  always  enlarging  as  he  went 
on  from  place  to  place.  He  said  that  Douglas  was  not  lack 
ing  in  versatility,  but  that  he  had  formed  a  theory  that  the 
speech  which  he  was  delivering  at  his  small  meetings  was 
the  one  best  adapted  to  secure  votes  and  since  the  voters  at 
one  meeting  would  not  be  likely  to  hear  him  at  any  other, 
they  would  never  know  that  he  was  repeating  himself,  or, 
if  they  did  know,  they  would  probably  think  that  it  was  the 
proper  thing  to  do. 

I  traveled  many  days  with  Mr.  Lincoln  in  all  sorts  of 
conveyances,  when  he  had  no  other  companion.  At  such 
times  we  engaged  in  conversation  mostly  on  the  subject  with 
which  his  mind  was  occupied,  connected  with  the  campaign, 
and  he  talked  to  me  with  the  same  freedom  and  seriousness 
as  he  would  have  talked  with  a  person  of  his  own  age  and 
experience.  At  the  country  taverns  where  we  stopped  over 
night  there  was  always  a  roomful,  or  houseful,  of  warm 
friends  and  eager  listeners,  with  whom  the  conversation, 
interspersed  with  mirth,  was  continued  for  hours  together. 
Lincoln  as  a  story-teller  was  the  most  humorous  being  I 
ever  knew.  His  stories  were  not  told  for  the  purpose  of 
causing  merriment  but  to  illustrate  the  subject  of  the  con 
versation,  whatever  it  might  be.  His  manner  of  telling 
such  stories  was  irresistible  and  inimitable.  He  would 
entertain  a  roomful  of  people  in  this  way  till  their  sides 
ached  with  laughter.  It  was  customary  then  in  country 
taverns  for  two  men  to  occupy  the  same  room  at  night, 
either  as  a  matter  of  necessity  or  as  a  matter  of  economy, 
and  thus  I  slept  in  the  same  room  with  Mr.  Lincoln  several 
times. 

29 


In  all  my  journeyings  with  him  I  never  heard  any  person 
call  him  "Abe/7  not  even  his  partner,  Herndon.  There 
was  an  impalpable  garment  of  dignity  about  him  which 
forbade  such  familiarity.  I  have  read  pretended  conversa 
tions  with  him  in  books  and  newspapers  where  his  inter 
locutors  addressed  him  as  Abe  this  and  Abe  that,  but  I 
am  sure  that  all  such  colloquies  are  imaginary. 

Douglas  does  not  make  a  very  engaging  picture  in  the 
seven  joint  debates,  but  he  won  the  victory  according  to 
the  rules  of  the  game.  His  friends  carried  the  legislature 
by  a  majority  of  three  in  the  Senate  and  five  in  the  House, 
although  Lincoln's  friends  had  a  plurality  of  4,191  in  the 
popular  vote.  The  districting  of  the  state  was  unduly 
favorable  to  the  Democrats.  The  result  was  bitterly 
lamented  by  the  Republicans  and  by  none  more  so  than 
myself,  but  looking  back  upon  it  now  it  seems  to  me  that 
Providence  directed  events  better  than  we  could  have  done, 
for  if  Douglas  had  been  defeated  his  prestige  would  have 
been  shattered,  and  he  would  not  have  had  sufficient  strength 
in  the  Charleston  convention  to  split  the  Democratic  party 
in  twain,  whereby  a  Republican  victory  was  made  certain 
in  1860.  Moreover,  if  Lincoln  had  been  elected  senator 
he  would  probably  not  have  been  nominated  for  President 
in  1860. 

In  reviewing  this  political  encounter  I  have  sketched 
only  the  salient  points  of  the  campaign,  those  which  must 
remain  a  part  of  our  country's  history.  After  reading  again 
the  whole  of  these  seven  joint  debates  I  am  more  than  ever 
convinced  that  Lincoln's  speeches  will  take  a  place  among 
our  American  classics,  not  merely  by  reason  of  the  cause 
for  which  he  contended,  and  the  mighty  events  which  they 
foreshadowed,  but  also  for  their  literary  quality.  We  find 
here  the  same  felicity  that  marked  the  papers  and  messages 
and  speeches  that  he  gave  us  during  his  presidency,  includ- 

30 


ing  the  Gettysburg  address  and  the  second  inaugural.  This 
felicity  of  expression  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when  we 
reflect  that  the  speeches  were  extemporaneous  and  were 
delivered  in  the  open  air,  in  the  midst  of  noise,  confusion, 
and  various  interruptions.  All  of  those  speeches  as  tran 
scribed  by  the  shorthand  reporter,  Robert  R.  Hitt  (after 
ward  congressman),  passed  through  my  hands,  and  none 
other,  before  they  went  to  the  printers,  and  they  under 
went  no  alteration  except  in  a  few  cases  where  the  wind,  or 
some  disorder  on  the  platform,  caused  a  slight  hiatus  in  the 
stenographer's  notes. 

I  need  not  add  that  Douglas  was  outclassed  in  these 
debates,  although  he  won  the  prize  for  which  the  debaters 
were  contending.  His  day  of  true  glory  came  later.  When 
the  secessionists  fired  on  Fort  Sumter,  he  ranged  himself 
on  the  side  of  Lincoln  and  came  to  Illinois  to  hold  the  state 
true  to  the  Union.  This  was  the  occasion  of  his  last  and 
greatest  effort.  The  state  legislature,  then  in  session, 
invited  him  to  address  them  on  the  existing  crisis  and  he 
responded  on  the  25th  of  April.  I  was  one  of  the  listeners 
to  that  speech  and  I  cannot  conceive  that  Demosthenes, 
or  Mirabeau,  or  Patrick  Henry,  or  any  orator  of  ancient  or 
modern  times  could  have  surpassed  it.  Nobody  can  form 
an  estimate  of  its  power  by  merely  reading  it.  Its  chief 
feature  was  its  tremendous  earnestness.  It  was  an  outburst 
of  passion,  perspiration,  and  patriotism  raised  to  the  nth 
degree.  If  the  roof  of  the  building  had  been  carried  away 
by  the  tempest  that  was  issuing  from  the  Little  Giant 
none  of  his  listeners  would  have  been  surprised.  At  that 
time  southern  Illinois  was  hanging  in  the  balance  regarding 
the  question  of  sustaining  Lincoln  in  the  policy  of  coercing 
the  seceding  states.  Lying  between  Kentucky  and  Mis 
souri,  its  people  held  substantially  the  same  political  views 
and  prejudices  as  theirs.  Douglas  was  the  only  man  who 

31 


could  have  held  them  solid  for  the  Union.  The  southern 
counties  now  followed  him  as  faithfully  as  they  had  followed 
him  in  previous  years  and  sent  their  sons  into  the  field  to 
fight  for  the  Union  as  numerously  and  bravely  as  any  other 
section  of  the  state  or  of  the  Union.  His  influence  was  also 
potent  in  the  border  states,  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  both  of 
which  refused  to  join  the  Southern  Confederacy  and  sent 
large  reinforcements  to  the  Union  armies. 

Douglas  had  only  a  few  more  days  to  live.  He  was  now 
forty-eight  years  of  age,  but  if  he  had  lived  forty-eight 
years  longer  he  never  could  have  surpassed  that  eloquence, 
or  exceeded  that  service  to  his  country,  for  he  never  could 
have  found  another  like  occasion  to  call  out  his  astounding 
powers.  He  died  at  Chicago,  June  3,  1861.  I  have  a 
tender  memory  for  him.  His  great  competitor,  however, 
will  always  wear  the  laurel  of  the  joint  debates.  "  Thrice 
is  he  armed  who  hath  his  quarrel  just!" 


SssSRS8: 

^aS?1*** 

"  'efalL 


*««£*» 


I    Jaylamount 
Pamphlet 

Binder 
Gaylord  Bros..  Inc. 

Stockton,  Calif. 
T.  M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off. 


llfif 

00^3553611 


R22793     4  $7 

>4 
W5" 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


